Pa. House liquor committee approves sale of state store system

Gov. Corbett's bill is amended, but measure moves to full House for vote on Thursday.

Billie Moyer, an assistant store manager of a state liquor store in western… (Steve Esack, THE MORNING…)

March 19, 2013|By Steve Esack, Call Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG — David Moyer has a plan to help his family.

"He said, 'Mom, I'm going to get a job,' " Billie Moyer said.

He's 6.

In his Clark, Mercer County, home, that's old enough to understand the anguish his parents have faced over whether Billie will lose her hourly $21.48 salary and family health benefits as an assistant manager of a state liquor store if the Legislature agrees to privatize the sale of wine and spirits stores as Gov. Tom Corbett wants.

His mom is now one step closer to losing her job.

After a four-hour hearing Monday, the House Liquor Control Committee voted 14-10 along party lines to end the state's 80-year-old monopoly on the sale of booze as the Republican governor proposed as part of his $28.4 billion spending plan for 2013-14. The full House is scheduled to vote on the bill Thursday, and, if approved, the bill would move to the Senate for consideration before going to Corbett.

The bill the committee adopted is not as grand as Corbett had wanted and its projected proceeds of a sale would be $200 million lower than the governor's $1 billion estimate. Corbett would spend the money on public education.

Despite those differences, Corbett said he was pleased with the bill and sale proceeds would still go to public schools.

"We believe this bill will allow us to make a significant investment in schools and it also increases penalties and fines, both of which are important parts of my plan," Corbett said in a statement.

After the hearing, Rep. Paul Costa, D-Allegheny, the committee's minority chairman, said the committee vote was a foregone conclusion. House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, a longtime privatization proponent, stacked the committee with like-minded Republicans to win the measure, he said.

"If he couldn't get this out of committee, that would have been a huge embarrassment," Costa said.

John Taylor, R-Philadelphia, chairman of the House Liquor Control Committee, said he expects the committee's bill to be amended, but he predicted the governor will have a bill to sign later this year.

Corbett's original plan was outlined in House Bill 790, which Turzai, R-Allegheny, began advertising in January. Under that plan the state's 600 state stores would have been phased out over four years in place of 1,200 wine and liquor retailers.

Some of those retailers would have included beer distributors who would have had to pay upward of $150,000 to sell wine and also six-packs. At the same time, the bill also would have expanded beer and wine sales into supermarkets, convenience stores and retailers such as Target, Walmart and Costco.

But that plan had no chance.

For weeks, Taylor said he had his own plan to scale back privatization in large part to protect 1,138 beer distributors who feared they could not compete against big-box stores like Walmart.

On Friday, Taylor did just that with an amended bill, 375, introduced by Rep. Mark Mustio, R-Allegheny. On Monday, the committee approved the amended bill.

It calls for beer distributors to get first dibs on licenses to sell wine, liquor or both for between $7,500 and $60,000. Beer distributors would be able to pay the licensing fees in monthly installments over two years.

In theory, that would leave 62 retail licenses, ranging from $97,500 to $262,500, that would go to the independent stores or corporate chains like Walmart.

Large chains like Walmart, however, could only sell liquor or wine at five locations in the state.

The bill would allow 820 grocery stores — or one per every 15,000 residents per county — to sell beer and wine. In addition, the prohibition against gas stations selling beer would be voided. Restaurants would be permitted to sell up to six bottles of wine or up to 24 beers to go, and taverns could sell liquor by the bottle.

More private licenses could be issued at a future date while state stores gradually would be shuttered until there were 100 left and the entire system would be shut down.

The state employees who would lose their jobs would get between $1,000 and $2,000 education grants, which is double what Corbett had proposed. The amended bill also gives preferential treatment for other state jobs that do not require a civil service exam and employers who hire displaced state workers would get a $2,000 tax credit.

While Republicans were united behind the amended proposal, Democrats were united against it and got the committee to postpone a vote three times.

Rep. Tina Davis, D-Bucks, said the committee needs more time to review the amended bill before voting.

"It's getting shoved down our throats in three days," she said.

"It's been 80 years," Taylor replied.

The vote won praise from conservative groups, such as the Commonwealth Foundation, which said it is a way to increase jobs and bring change.

After the hearing, Wendell Young IV, president of the union that represents more than 4,000 state liquor store employees, said his members will fight to try to defeat the bill in the House and Senate.

Jay Wiederhold, president of the Pennsylvania Beer Alliance, said the amended proposal is a little better than Corbett's plan, but it is far from acceptable. It is unnecessarily complex and creates too much competition with grocery stores, he said.

Moyer, the western Pennsylvania assistant state store manager, left Harrisburg confused and unsure of her future.

"I really don't think any of them made any sense," she said. "I don't know what I'm going to do."